This is the best news I’ve heard in a long time, regarding Justice Clarence Thomas’ tax evasion deception for several years.

Rep. Louis Slaughter (D-NY) told Current TV’s Keith Olbermann Tuesday that a “retroactive recusal” of Justice Clarence Thomas could result in overturning the Citizens United case.

Earlier this year, the liberal group Common Cause argued that both Justices Thomas and Antonin Scaliashould have recused themselves from the Citizens United case because they attended events organized billionaire Charles Koch.

Image by DonkeyHotey via Flickr

In addition, Thomas’ wife, Virginia Thomas, may have received financial benefit from the Citizens United ruling, something that was never disclosed by the justice.

Twenty House Democrats Thursday called on the U.S. Judicial Conference to formally request that the U.S. Department of Justice investigate Justice Clarence Thomas’s non-compliance with the Ethics in Government Act of 1978.

Justice Thomas indicated on his annual financial disclosure forms that his wife had received no income since he joined the bench in 1991, despite the fact that his wife had in fact earned nearly $700,000 from the Heritage Foundation from 2003 to 2007.

“What I’m very interested here is the votes that he has cast that may be in conflict,” Slaughter explained to Olbermann. “Of course, his wife can work. But the fact is there are only nine justice on that Supreme Court and it certainly should be a given that a family member of any of those people lucky enough to be a Supreme Court justice should not in any way involve themselves in matters that will go before that court. Now, we all know that she worked very hard for the Citizens United case, which I think is one of the most egregious things that have ever happened in the United States Supreme Court.”

She added: “There is such a thing as a retroactive recusal. We’re looking into that. That case, if you remember, was decided 5-4. If we could take away his vote, we could wipe that out. It would lose. How ’bout that?”

“That’s only the future of the democracy there, isn’t it?” Olbermann asked.

“Yes, indeed. And we are — you know, the judiciary is the last place for all of us to go. We’re only as good — all of us — as the courts are, only as safe as the courts are good. Their interpretations are really what give us the freedoms when you come down to it. They have enormous power.”

Author and Rolling Stone columnist Matt Taibbi appeared on Countdown with Keith Olbermann to discuss the “Occupy Wall Street” protests and their potential for motivating change. The protest, as it stands, is mostly made up of young people who are feeling fed up and disaffected, but Taibbi sees the protests as a reflection of real anger on the part of the American people, anger that rises out of the sense that Wall Street controls too much of American political life. Activists whose work centers around these issues, he says, can point to the protests as a manifestation of genuine distress on the part of the public.

Keith poses the question as to whether a gathering of Tea Party protests would have garnered more media attention. At the end of the segment, he quips that maybe the “Occupy Wall Street” crowd needs more “funny hats”.

Between talk of testosterone and Jackie Kennedy,Bill Maher brought up the new Sarah Palinbiography containing all sorts of odd, politically irrelevant rumors about the former governor’s life. After some initial hesitation, Keith Olbermannsurprised himself by defending Palin against the rumors.

Palin was brought into the conversation courtesy of a Louis C.K. masturbation joke, from which Maher took the opportunity to ask the comic about hisdrunken tweets about Palin. C.K. used a few choice words in talking about the governor, joking on the show that she had an entire family of Chinese people living in her c***, but the more surprising part of the conversation came when it shifted to the new book The Rogue by Joe McGinniss.

Maher brought up the book and said that many reviewers, even at The New York Times, thought Palin got a “raw deal” because of all the unsubstantiated rumors in the book about her alleged one-night stand with an NBA player and snorting cocaine off an oil drum. Olbermann hesitated before daring to speak aloud:

I’m… I’m actually… on Sarah Palin’s… side on this.

He was quick to calm himself down by saying, “That woman is an idiot,” before asking of the biography, “Why is it relevant and what’s the point of it and how well-sourced is it?” He allowed that her public statements are fair game, but didn’t like the amount of factless speculation in the book.

Here’s the ultimate takeaway: if you write an anti-Sarah Palin book and Keith Olbermann is saying you crossed a line, you CLEARLY did something wrong.

Breaking from Keith Olbermann‘s Countdown on CurrentTV:
(UPDATE 1: video of segment now viewable at bottom of diary)

The FAA is investigating Murdoch for flying a drone with a camera on it..

Forbes magazine reporting it. Using it to look at natural disasters among other things. They fly too low and are illegal.

Forbes also reporting that an ex-airforce official worked with Murdoch to make a drone that could capture cell phone signals, unlocked wi-fi signals, etc. Holy effing crap – Rupert thinks he’s his own airforce! Smug bastard – kind makes me think of Borat going, “King of the castle! King of the castle!”

The News Corp’s The Daily has a drone that it’s sent out a few times, as noted by The Observer. After The Daily broadcast some incredible footage of Alabama after it was devastated by storms, UAS Vision reported that The Daily owns a MicroDrone MD4-1000. The Daily sent it out again in June to bring back video from Minot, North Dakota after intense flooding there. (Total non-sequitur: Drones can hack cell phones now, you know.)Taking footage for news-gathering purposes seemed like a commercial use of a drone, which is a no-no, as I understand it. I followed up with the FAA asking if News Corp was one of the companies with an experimental certificate. The inquiry got lobbed to the FAA’s legal department…

“We are examining The Daily’s use of a small unmanned aircraft to see if it was in accordance with FAA policies,” said Les Dorr in an email today. A Daily spokesperson has not yet responded to an inquiry about ownership and licensing of the company’s drone.

UPDATE 1:

Many thanks to Diogenes2008 for the Countdown clip:

UPDATE 2:

A bit more on the law regarding private drones from G2geek in the comments:

Private drones are ILLEGAL in the US. This I know from reading articles about entrepreneurs and hobbyists who want to experiment with drones and remotely-piloted aircraft:There is a very narrow category open for experimentation, but it’s not even wide enough to allow the hobbyists and entrepreneurs to get into the game. Basically all it allows are the kinds of model airplanes you can operate from the ground while being able to see them at all times. Nothing more.

If Murdoch and his minions are doing anything more than what hobbyists are already doing with RC model aircraft, he’s in deep doodoo up to his evil eyeballs.

UPDATE 2.5

A HUGE thanks to Keith Olbermann and Forbes Magazine for breaking this story.

Ratings for Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and other hyperpartisans are declining as listeners seek honest talk from hosts like Michael Smerconish over angry rants. A more civil conversation will add value to our political debate, writes John Avlon.

There’s new evidence to suggest a demand for something different than hyper-partisanship in the world of talk radio and political media.

In contrast, growing numbers of listeners are tuning in to independent voices who can be honest brokers in debates and don’t just angrily parrot talking points.

In February, I wrote a column asking whether right wing talk radio was dying and ruffled some feathers in that flock. A more accurate means of measuring listeners showed that conservative talkers’ ratings had either declined or flatlined in the heat of the 2010 election, while the world-journalism focus of the John Batchelor Show had seen a decided ratings climb. Now, a look at radical centrist Michael Smerconish’s national ratings growth since the start of the year provides more evidence of this emerging market.

First, here’s a snapshot that puts the shift in perspective: Just days after the 2010 election, the nation’s first all-conservative talk radio station, KVI in Seattle, switched back to a classic-rock format after 17 years. Its innovation had become media saturation—and music became an appealing alternative to the drone of a dozen Rush Limbaugh imitators.

But our winner: Greg W. Howard, who tweeted just another one of those “accidents” confusing Barack Obama and Osama Bin Laden:

Based on the twitter feed on it, this appears to be Mr. Howard’s site. There’s either a lot of hate on it, or a lot of typos. It has apparently not been updated since February, which may or may not have anything to do with the fact that this “financial advisor” filed for bankruptcy the year before.

You know, a week ago, here, typing in a hurry, I did a very mild form of this myself. I wrote that George W. Bush had personally de-prioritized the “hunt for Obama.” And you know what? It was very much a Freudian slip. Because alone among the leading Republicans of 2008, Bush did not attack his eventual successor’s credentials, experience, loyalty or birth.

So even if this pig Howard simply “slipped” in tweeting that “Obama’s” body should be used as a latrine, or hung from the Statue of Liberty – if it was just a Freudian slip, it was because Howard’s unconscious was pondering, perhaps advocating, just such an assassination.

More over, a tweet is not a thousand-word blog post nor even an on-air blooper. It’s a 140-character haiku and most tweeters have to agonize over every letter and space to make it all fit and make it all make sense. You review it and review it.

In short: if, in a typo, you publicly advocate hanging a president of the United States, you apologize for it. Otherwise it will be assumed you meant it – which makes Greg W. Howard the Worst Person of the Day.